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news

: updated 19th december 02000 :

100 years of solitude -- Looking for a last-minute present
or a treat to brighten up your new year? Then music journalist Mark Prendergast
has just the thing. His new book The Ambient Century : From Mahler To Trance
- Sonic Evolution in the Electronic Age is now available in the UK and is
due to be published in the US on January 21st 02001. The book's 500 pages are
preceded by a foreword written by Brian in which he no doubt ambiently drones
on about something or other. The book also includes excerpts from Mark's many
interviews with Brian plus pictures from Brian's private collection. I'm sorry,
that last phrase sounded a bit Edwardian- gentleman- twiddling- his-
moustache... let me make it clear it's not that picture collection --
it's his photo archive. Or does that sound worse? Umm... er... hey, what's that
link down there?

Fripp, Fripp, hooray -- Johannes Korn points out that
Robert Fripp mentions meeting up with Brian in his on-line diary (December 12th
02000). EnoWeb respects the fact that Robert holds the copyright in his work
and so we are not going to repeat his words here. Just follow the link and let
Robert tell you himself. (Actually this diary entry scrolled off soon after we
posted the story. Basically Robert said he met up with Brian and they had fun
and possibly he might return with a guitar. Later in the week they had a
telephone conversation too.)

A
picture paints a thousand Enos -- David Brighton writes: "I am sure
you have seen this, but if not..." Well no actually; until now EnoWeb had been
blissfully unaware of this meisterwerk of the painter's art, and still does not
quite believe it.

Remember my name -- Not Eno-related, but you might like to
know that following up Over Heard [see story below], Big Eyes Media has
developed the FAME Music Capsule which will play a darkly meditative generative
music piece for you.

Sikter Sector -- Bommel writes: "The band Sikter have
just released a new album titled Now, Always, Never. Brian Eno is
credited for keyboards on tracks 2, 3 & 9, vocals on tracks 2 & 3, and
whistling on track 4. He is also credited for co-production of these tracks.
People can order this CD from Sikter's web-site, which also features some MP3s
from the album. Eno provides backing vocals and plays keyboards on 'Time and
Space' and 'Devil's Drive' is the one with him whistling."

The Write Stuff -- Well-known ostrich-plumed former glam
rock star Eno has received the ultimate accolade, with the news that a set of
writing instruments has been named after him. This is a feat that not even Mick
Hucknall or Barry Manilow have achieved and confirms that Eno can still mix it
with the big boys. According to its publicity material,"Color
Eno is a new concept in mechanical pencils - erasable, coloured writing in
8 translucent barrel colours." EnoWeb contacted Eno's managers for a statement
on this major recognition and they said "This is nothing to do with us. Please
leave us alone." N.B. Pens contain small parts. Keep out of mouth.

Part 1 -- On October 20th Lisa Linn from WXDU-Durham and
Isaac Trogdon from WXYC-Chapel Hill interviewed Brian about his Blisses &
Koans exhibition. Brian discussed generative systems, his enthusiasm for his
Korg Kaoss pad, and the current state of technology. The interview is now
available in RealAudio.

Part 2 -- those whose appetites for generative/algorithmic
matters have been whetted by thoughts of Bliss & Koan may well be further
stimulated by Over Heard. Described by its creators as "a world's first
wholly Flash-based visually and aurally algorithmic installation supporting
dual algorithmic formats in the same installation", Over Heard features
a choice of listening through FAME (the new Freedom Algorithmic Music Engine,
which requires no additional plug-in apart from Flash) or SSEYO's Koan. The
visual elements take the form of undated journal entries in different
combinations in the style of non-interactive hypertext, if that makes any
sense. There is no connection with Brian, by the way -- EnoWeb just thought you
might be interested.

Stone me -- on 11th November, Brian and Alexander Rose spoke
at the Doors of Perception "Lightness" Conference in Amsterdam, showing
off the Rosetta Disk, according to Wired. Brian's Bio on the site states
"He also expects to release an album of his own music in the coming year"...
hmm, wonder which year that'll be? Thanks to Richard Joly.

Trust me, I'm a Future -- Sometime on Saturday 28th October,
Brian will be taking part in the "in.site" event, a webcast combining live
performances and visual contributions from artists across the world. It's all
in aid of Future Trust, a charity developing some of the ideas of War Child.
Future Trust supports the work of the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar, music
therapy, education and community reconstruction.

Parts on display -- The Partobject gallery is currently
displaying hundreds of screen grabs from Brian's Bliss artworks (see 3rd story
below for more information about the current exhibition). Also of interest is
the biography of Brian, which in its shorter version claims "he also expects to
release an album of his own music later this year".

Wired for sound judgement -- The Wire magazine's 200th issue surveys
200 music-related web-sites and says of EnoWeb: "The continuing absence of an
official Eno Website should not cause concern when there's a online resource as
comprehensive as EnoWeb...". How kind of them. And how vain of EnoWeb to
mention it.

Save All Your Blisses For Me -- On Saturday, October 7th,
Brian's new exhibition will be opening at the Partobject Gallery in Carrboro,
North Carolina. The exhibition, titled Blisses
1-87; KOANS 1-29, will be the international premiere of
computer-generated screen and audio works made by Brian over the past decade.
Partobject is proud to premiere these visual works for video screens called
Blisses by the artist.

Blisses derive from a computer program designed by Greg Jalbert
originally made for consumers to design their own screensavers. It is possible
then to "specify interacting sets of instructions which govern color
generation." The nature of the program is that they never precisely repeat
themselves. So, one can view a particular Bliss program and never see the same
thing twice, infinitely.

The title of the exhibition specifies "1-87 and 1-29" and refers to the
fact that three new Bliss programs/works and one new KOAN (Sseyo® KOAN®
Interactive Audio Platform) program/work will be presented each day in the
gallery during the twenty-nine days of the exhibition.

In addition to the screening of the Bliss visual works, Eno will present
29 KOAN audio works as an aural backdrop for the viewer. The KOAN works are the
audio equivalent of the Blisses, in the sense that they also allow the artist
to "specify a large number of musical parameters and let them interact. The
computer then 'plays' several internal sound synthesizers according to the
instructions generated in KOAN. The music in this exhibition, like the visual
Blisses, is non-repeating."

The exhibition will open on Saturday, October 7, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
and continues until November 25. Partobject Gallery is located at 103-C West
Weaver Street, Carrboro. Gallery Hours are Wed-Fri 12-6 p.m., Sat 11-7 p.m. For
more information call 933 2225. Hmm, maybe there should be a code for those
outside NC.

Each day of the exhibition the gallery will be putting a different shot
of one of Brian's Bliss works on its web-site. Here's an
example of what to
expect from the exhibition invite card.

HHG for DA & BE -- On Wednesday 4th October, just after
11:00am, BBC Radio 4, Brian will be appearing in Douglas Adams' new series
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Future which aims to make sense of the digital world. The two will
compare notes on how long it takes them to produce a new solo album/novel when
there are so many other distractions out there. Oh dear, I seem to have
mistyped that. What I should have said was of course The focus of this
programme is music on the Internet. Many Radio 4 programmes are broadcast on
the Net so you might get lucky and hear it.

U4 -- the U2 site now has MP3 excerpts from 4 songs
appearing on the band's new album, All That
You Can't Leave Behind, available for download. Others may well have
been added bythe time you read this. There's the video for
Beautiful Day too.

Manchester City -- Brian was interviewed at In The City, the
annual Manchester-based conference for the music industry, on Monday 25th
September. Although this A&R beano is not open to the public the chat was
filmed, and previous years' sessions have been made available on CD in MP3
format, so we may yet find out what he was saying about us behind our backs. I
mean, what his views are about the music industry and stuff.

Trans-former -- For those of us who missed the
garageband.com chat with Brian Eno, the transcript is now available. Typing
from Frankfurt, Brian discusses working with U2, art, his earlier work, his
current projects, and says that next year Virgin will be releasing remastered
versions of his albums including some previously unreleased material. He also
plans to publish the 5th Edition of the Oblique Strategies.

To read the transcript, just join garageband.com (free). Then when
you're a member of the site, click on the "go backstage" link, then click on
"Blast from the chat" and then click on "Brian Eno chat transcript". Brian's
been giving advice to hopeful bands on the site this week, and you can read his
comments there too. EnoWeb thanks visitor Timothy Andrew Edwards, who explains:
'production "chops" = production "skills".'

Garageband.com link for those too lazy to scroll down to
the previous news story

All talk -- Andrew Nicholas
pointed out this information from garageband.com: "Brian Eno will be
chatting LIVE on garageband.com on Wednesday, September 20th at 3:00 p.m. PST.
Check out the homepage on September 20th and log on! Brian will be available to
discuss The Birth of Modern Music, including his role in pioneering ambient
music, the glam rock of Roxy Music, and his production chops with artists like
David Bowie and Talking Heads." Brian joined the board of Garageband.com, a
site for unsigned talent, last year. EnoWeb wonders what production chops are,
but is not prepared to ask.

Luke from Garageband.com has been in
touch with EnoWeb and is keen that we should use their official
wording: "I am writing on behalf of garageband.com and I was going
to ask you to post a little note and link about our upcoming live online chat
with brian eno--which is causing us all to bounce with anticipation. I see that
someone else has beaten us to the cookie jar and you already have a posting
about it BUT..... we would love it if you wouldn't mind posting this text and
the official link for this chat. Huge thanks in advance. . . I'm also planning
on telling a large number of friends about your site- if they havent already
seen it. I think it's pretty dope. [...]

Brian Eno chats LIVE on garageband.com Wednesday, September 20th at
3:00 p.m. PST! For more information on Brian's chat on The Birth of Modern
Music shimmy on over to garageband.com."

He's a TV lover -- Late on Wednesday night (or early on
Thursday morning), 7th September, UK Channel 4 broadcast a 4MUSIC: PIONEERS
feature on Brian's life and work, with contributions by The Orb, U2, David
Byrne and David Toop amongst others. Brian did not get a chance to mention the
Clock of the Long Now, which is a shame as it means we can't turn his words
into a plug for our exclusive pictures of the clock prototype being assembled
at the Science Museum. But anyway, EnoWeb was excited to see Brian at last
getting the peak-time coverage he richly deserves... What's that you say, hmmm?
12.35am is peak-time for The Young People? Wouldn't have happened in my
day.

Sloppy treatment -- Bommel
writes: The forthcoming Slop Shop album
Makrodelia 2 includes one track
with contributions by Brian, "So Nah". It features excerpts from the Sushi!
Roti! Reibekuchen! concert with Brian Eno and Peter Schwalm's group Slop Shop
in Bonn, August 1998. The CD is released in September 02000 by Poets Club
Records (PCR016). An EP marking a collaboration between Brian and Peter is
under way, and Brian is working on a remix for the next Slop Shop single.

Social Call -- David Coper
Orton writes: The August 19th edition of
New Scientist (p49) mentions
The Book of Inspirations, published
by The Institute for Social Inventions, and with (apparently) an enthusiastic
introduction by Brian. Not finding it listed at amazon.co.uk, further
investigation reveals that it seems to be available only as part of a £15
subscription, which includes a: 'book-length Annual in July/Aug each year. The
annual until July 15th 2001 is called The Book
of Inspirations - A directory of Social Inventions. 320 pages. The
musician and writer Brian Eno writes: "Civilisation is embodied social
imagination. This is a book about it."'

Dream Team -- EnoWeb is interested to hear that Maurizio
Dami's new album Lucid Dreams (aka
Awake Dreams) has a rather nice
track called "The Conscience Of Eno". Of course, the Eno in question isn't
necessarily Brian, but the track is well worth a listen.

Cam-Eire -- As Brian, Daniel Lanois, U2 and their team put
the finishing touches to the new U2 album (estimated release date sometime in
2005), you can watch their every move -- or some of them, anyway -- on two
web-cams at the official U2 site. The site aims to have other material relating
to the album including previews of tracks; you'll currently find a 30-second
extract from the track 'Beautiful Day', which is destined to be the first
single. As some people find this site a little difficult to navigate, a number
of U2 fans are collaborating on a site of their own, where they chronicle the
events in the studio 25 hours a day. They also keep an archive of the web-cam
pictures so you can spy on Brian even if he's hiding behind the settee at the
time you visit.

Punctum Rocked -- The Punctum project trailed below appears
to have come to a premature full stop: Opal had never heard of it, Brian is not
involved and the Year of the Artist people claim to "know notheeng". The story
calls to EnoWeb's mind a line from a Stephen Fry sketch: "We are artists. Con
artists, admittedly..."

Order, order -- In response to many requests, Opal has now
decided to add CDRs of Civic Recovery
Centre and Lightness to
the list of installation soundtracks now available to order from its London
Office. Price is the same as Kite
Stories & I
Dormienti. EnoWeb doesn't currently have dedicated order forms for
these CDs but you could grab a crayon and just scribble over the bits that
don't apply on one of the original forms.

Seven (1) -- Rory Walsh
writes: "I happened to be in the UK on the 24th June 2000 and while
flicking through the Timeout on the train to London I came across a small ad
for a performance of the 'Great Learning' that evening at which Damon Albarn,
Michael Nyman and one Brian Eno were due to perform. The concert was at the
Union Chapel off Upper Street Islington. Although I did not know it at the time
-- I had to call the box-office number three times for them to even acknowledge
that the performance was on -- you could perform at the event if you attended
at the rehearsal earlier that day. At first I thought that Eno would not show -
I have been to two events advertised in Timeout where Eno was to appear but did
not. But he did show just before the start of Paragraph VII. This part is for a
large group of untrained singers and he was just one of the singers. In good
minimalist tradition his performance was minimal in that he stood at the back
of the stage singing the lines from the scores. He sat on the floor looking at
the details on the pulpit. Half way through he got up and walked to the pews by
the side of the stage sitting down next to Nyman, singing 'If the root be in
confusion, nothing will be well governed' all the while. Along with the 'names'
some other obscure English artists were there such as Guy Evans, Christopher
Hobbs and Eddie Prevost."

Seven (2) -- David Bowie has released the song "Seven" from
his album hours... on three different singles. In the UK, CD2 includes a
cover of the Bowie/Eno song "I'm Afraid Of Americans" by Nine Inch Nails,
together with a video of the same piece. As single releases frequently differ
from country to country a dedicated Bowie site would be your best bet for
editions in the USA and elsewhere.

Get to the point -- BBC News Online reports that as part of
Britain's Year of the Artist initiative "Pop music pioneer Brian Eno and
anthropologist Noam Chomsky" will be collaborating on
Punctum. The plan for the piece,
"to be broadcast in 30 three-minute slots on Radio Lincolnshire", is "to
compose a musical score by imagining the rhythm or emotional emphasis given to
punctuation marks in specific pieces of great literature" -- starting with
something by Tennyson. But when EnoWeb went looking for more information, it
transpired that the main-man artist creating Punctum is Gary Wood, with Noam advising
on the language and Brian overseeing the music side.

Charity case -- EnoWeb's search on the BBC News site also
turned up a story from 3rd May: apparently "avant-garde rock musician Brian Eno
has been honoured with the Montblanc Arts Award in recognition of his work for
the War Child charity's music centre." He donated his £9,000 prize money
to the Koestler Awards which, an arts scheme for inmates of UK prisons and
special institutions.

It's about time -- London's Science Museum has always had a
reputation for looking towards the future, but this time it could be looking
further ahead than ever before... ten thousand years in fact. As part of its
new Making the Modern World
gallery, the Museum will be exhibiting a beautifully engineered working
prototype of The Clock of The Long Now.

The Long Now Foundation (of which Brian is a member of the board of
directors) has conceived the Clock as a project to encourage long-term thinking
and responsibility. In Stewart Brand's words, its aim is to act as a
"corrective" to the way that "humanity is revving itself into a pathologically
short attention span". Designed by Danny Hillis, the Clock of The Long Now is
designed to run for ten thousand years; the Foundation hopes that the concept
will influence the way we think about time in the same way that photographs of
Earth from Space changed the way we think about our planet.

Making the Modern World is a cultural history of
industrialisation from 01750 to the present day. The gallery traces the
technological and scientific successes and failures which have shaped the world
we live in. Complementing the Clock prototype are over 1800 objects from the
Museum's collections including Stephenson's Rocket, Crick and Watson's DNA
spiral model, the Apollo 10 command module, plus a series of studies that
explore the stories behind the exhibits and highlight their historical
context.

Koan goes soft -- The new version of SSEYO's Koan generative
music software, used by Brian for his Generative Music 1 album and
installations at Bonn's KAH, Amsterdam's Stedelijk & London's Hayward
Galleries, features for the first time a powerful integrated software
synthesizer. This will enable musicians to create Koan pieces incorporating
instrument sounds and effects that can be played by on any PC or Mac regardless
of the audio hardware. Brian is quoted as saying: "The coupling of a powerful
software synthesizer to Koan's existing compositional software opens up an
amazing set of opportunities for generative music. Really promising."

Light Touch -- Oliver Lowenstein tells us that the fourth
edition of Fourth Door Review "features an in-depth piece on Brian Eno's
ambient videowork of the eighties and onwards. It is written by Kevin Eden of
the Wire music label, and is part of a themed section on luminosities and the
built environment (architexts), which also includes the Technolace work of
Finnish light sculptress Helena Hietanen and the work of leading German
Holographer, Dieter Jung, and developing holography in urban design contexts."

Long Talk -- According to the
Longplayer site, Brian
will be in conversation with Danny Hillis and Stewart Brand for an event titled
The Long Now: A Different Kind Of Clock. It takes place on Sunday 25th
June at 17:00 at at The Chainstore, Trinity Buoy Wharf, 64 Orchard Place,
London E14 OJW. See the Longplayer site for booking details -- click on its
Developments link and scroll along the page.

Standard answers -- Brian was interviewed for the Evening
Standard in April when he was preparing his installation for Sonic Boom. To
find the article, click
here then type Brian Eno in the Search box. Thanks
to Alex McCourty.

Sonic Boom Boy -- Civic Recovery Centre Proposal (The
Quiet Club), an installation by Brian combining 12 musical and 10 visual
light sculpture generative elements, has now finished its run at Sonic Boom:
The Art Of Sound. The musical flavour when EnoWeb visited was predominantly
Ikebukuro & Kite Stories. The exhibition of 30+ artists' work curated by
David Toop is at the Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London, until 18th June
02000. EnoWeb urges you to visit this excellent show if you get the
opportunity. For complete information visit
here.

Wire oh wire -- There is an interview with Brian in the May
edition of The Wire magazine.

Wish upon a star -- The
Wishful Thinking
site has a transcript of the Toop/Eno discussion which took place in early May
plus other fun stuff.

Phil up -- Manzanera.com has some RealAudio extracts from an
interview with Phil Manzanera, and you can hear him reminiscing about early
post-Roxy work with Brian
here. While you're at the site, check out the re-release of
the classic Listen Now album as well.

O'Connor artist -- Sinead O'Connor is due to release a new
album, Faith & Courage, on June 13th. This should include "Emma's
Song", the track that she and Brian worked on for the soundtrack of The
Avengers film. Thanks to Robert Phan.

Seven days in May --
ARTISTdirect network and
UBL.com have selected EnoWeb as their "Cool Site Of The Week". Apparently
our exciting moment of fame began on Tuesday 2nd and we became old hat on the
evening of Monday 8th. You could have seen our link on the right-hand side of
their page. Tom Boon, EnoWeb's
long-suffering writer, said: "This is the culmination of a series of disasters
that have wrecked my personal life. I mean, the culmination of all my hopes,
dreams and aspirations, but for one week only! That's right -- everything must
go in my biggest ever sale! Prices slashed! I think I'll just go and have a
little lie-down under my desk now." ... Former EnoWeb head honcho Malcolm Humes
said: "Well, Ah'm pretty much retired, now, boy, and the only rocker Ah'm
interested in is the one Ah sit in on ma porch, where Ah watch the tumbleweeds
roll by, shootin' the breeze with some of ma mates and rememberin' some of the
good times at EnoWeb." ... Gary Chen, List Editor, ARTISTdirect, said: "Thanks
for choosing UBL.com as your source for music entertainment on the net and
congratulations again for standing apart from the rest! Sincerely."

Shop, Look and Listen -- A CD of Brian's Civic Recovery
Centre music is on sale in the Hayward Gallery shop (running time 44+
minutes). Also available is the Sonic Boom catalogue which includes some
comments by Brian on his installations. The catalogue features 2 CDs with music
by the contributing artists; the example from Brian's work is an extract from
Kite Stories.

Recovery Position -- EnoWeb asked Opal if they would be
selling the CD, and they explained: "The Civic Recovery Centre CD was
produced because we thought that visitors to the installation at Sonic
Boom might enjoy a souvenir of their visit. However, because the music for
this installation draws on elements from musics already released, we believe
that it would not be fair to release the CD on the scale of I Dormienti
or Kite Stories, as it may disappoint fans." So the Hayward Gallery shop
will remain the only source for this CD. Good news, however, as Opal finished
on the following positive note: "Rest assured that there are big projects in
the pipeline for later this year."

Toop of the pops -- David Toop and Brian Eno were in
conversation at the Chelsfield Room, London (above the Royal Festival Hall,
South Bank) on Tuesday May 2nd at 18.30pm-19.30pm. More information, price
& booking details
here. Thanks to David Cooper Orton & Richard
Mills.

Fly me to the Moon -- Record label
Materiali Sonori is due to
release Arturo Stalteri's album Cool August Moon: From the music of Brian
Eno in May. It explains: "Pianist and composer Arturo Stalteri leads an
ensemble of violins, cellos, bassoon, electric bass, keyboards and percussions
in a series of remarkable chamber-music arrangements of selected ambient-music
tracks by Brian Eno. Music ranging from 1973's Here Come The Warm Jets
to his most recent productions such as Nerve Net and Spinner,
through the ambient period of Apollo and Music For Films II."
Thanks to Robert Phan & Joseph Buck.

Get the picture -- There is a scan of an artwork by Brian
recently auctioned in aid of the charity Dress For Success at
Ramoana's Bowie Vault. Thanks to Richard Joly.

Fast and loose -- Michael Staley writes: "Brian Eno
has contributed at least one track to the soundtrack of new Irish film,
Accelerator, directed by Vinnie Murphy. Apparently Vinnie sent Brian the
scene he wanted music for, Brian sent some music back, Vinnie suggested some
changes, Brian then sent him a CD with 11 different versions of the track. The
majority of the score was written by Adrian Utley of Portishead, although the
film also contains tracks from Howie B, David Holmes and Eno. This doesn't
necessarily mean that Eno's track(s) will be on the soundtrack album (see:
Heat). The film has already been shown at this year's Dublin Film
Festival - I don't know when it might be getting a general release. I wish I
could say I had insider information - I don't - I saw an interview with Vinnie
Murphy in Irish CD ROM magazine Enter..."

Interesting Tamms --
Eric Tamm's book Brian Eno: his music and the vertical
color of sound is now available as a FREE downloadable Zip file from Eric's
web pages
here. Thanks Eric!

Head Boy -- NPR's All Things Considered on 27th March
included interviews with Talking Heads and Brian about recording Remain In
Light and Once In A Lifetime. It's archived
here in RealAudio. Thanks to Jeff Webber for this
information.

Sign(ing) o' The Times -- Camille Davila writes: "Previously
The Long Now Foundation has been offering signed copies of A Year with
Swollen Appendices as a thank you gift for donations of over $500. We only
have 4 copies left so we thought it might be an opportune time to inform Enoweb
of this offer." Time, time, that's all they ever think about over there.
Anyway, The Long Now Foundation's donations page is
here.

No place like OHM --
Perfect Sound
Forever's Jason Gross has co-curated OHM: the early gurus of electronic
music with Thomas Ziegler and people from
Ellipsis Arts. This
3-CD collection of pieces stretches from Clara Rockmore's "Tchaikovsky: Valse
Sentimentale" to Brian Eno's "Unfamiliar Winds (Leeks Hills)", taking in Sonic
Youth, Olivier Messiaen, Lamonte Young, Jon Hassell, Raymond Scott and many
many more. Available 24th April. Further information
here.

Music for Onmyoji is now available from
CDnow which lists it under
Brian Eno and Peter Schwalm.

More on Music for Onmyoji -- Brian Eno & Peter
Schwalm contribute one CD of six pieces, running at just over 28 minutes in
total. The other CD consists of Japanese music played on traditional
instruments. The tracks on the Eno/Schwalm CD are as follows: 1. star gods
(7:43) 2. six small pictures (6:06) 3. connecting heaven to earth (3:55) 4.
little lights (4:33) 5. the milky way (2:33) 6. faraway suns (3:21). Some
tracks also feature the voice of Kyoko Inatome, the waitress at Brian's
favourite sushi restaurant who spoke the words for Kite Stories. As well
as ab-cd.com and
artist-shop.com the
album is listed at cdzone.
As for packaging it has lovely plumage, with prismatic foil, a hologram and a
transparent wrap-around.

Million-dollar question -- U2's Bono had an on-line chat
with fans to promote the Million Dollar Hotel film and soundtrack album (which
features Brian, Jon Hassell and Daniel Lanois amongst others). Bono also talked
a little about the album the band is currently working on, and roped in most of
the other people in the room to answer fans' questions. You can read the chat
transcript at
Yahoo!. If you've got time to spare after that, you can find
out about the film and listen to musical excerpts at
milliondollarhotel.com -- EnoWeb recommends "Tom Tom's
Dream", "Bathtub" and "Amsterdam Blue". Those are track titles, by the way, not
banned substances or the latest coffee sensation from your local café
conglomerate...

Take a Bow(ie) -- BBC Radio 2 is in the throes of
broadcasting a 3-part series on David Bowie's life & music. The second part
-- on Saturday 18th March at 19:00 GMT -- takes a look at the Berlin albums, so
Brian might get a mention. If you live outside the UK, you may be excited to
know that the BBC is starting to webcast much of its output (only at time of
broadcast, not archived) and this might be one of the programmes that
makes it. Visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/ to find out.

Moonshot --
Joe Renzetti writes: "I
received and viewed the newly released DVD For All Mankind. The re-mastered
work is stunning visually and aurally. The DVD presents a new Dolby 5:1 sound
mix and audio commentary track by Al Reinert and Apollo 17 Commander Eugene
Cernan, the last man to set foot on the moon. There's also a gallery of
paintings by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean with audio commentary. There's NASA
audio highlights and liftoff footage, optional on screen identification of
astronauts and mission control specialists. The features are laid out in
interactive menus with Eno's music playing and JFK sounds layered. Overall a
very well put together package. I'd strongly recommend it for any Eno or Space
fan!"

Left them in Japan -- Music for Ommyo-ji, a double CD
with music by Brian Eno & Peter Schwalm, is scheduled to be released in
Japan by JVC at the end of February. EnoWeb has no information regarding
release in countries outside Japan although the album is presumably available
as an import. And we aren't sure whether the whole album is down to Brian and
Peter, or just part of it. On-line sources offering pre-orders include
ab-cd.com and
artist-shop.com. Peter
Schwalm is the guy behind Slop Shop, with whom Brian jammed at the Sushi! Roti!
Reibekuchen! gig back in 01998.

Boom town -- Brian is one of 26 artists involved in Sonic
Boom: The Art Of Sound, an exhibition curated by David Toop which will run
from 27th April to 18th June 02000 at the Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London.
Described as "the largest group exhibition of sound art ever staged in the UK",
the event will also feature installations from Russell Mills, Thomas
Köner, Scanner and Greyworld plus many, many more! For a full run-down,
visit www.sbc.org.uk/visualarts and click on the Sonic Boom
link.

Garage Glitterati -- Brian has joined the 35-strong Advisory
Panel of garageband.com,
"the Internet music company dedicated to identifying and signing the hottest of
the emerging bands". The Board is chaired by George Martin and Brian's fellow
music industry movers-and-shakers include Steve Lillywhite and Steve Earle.
Unsigned bands can upload their music to the site and have it reviewed by other
music-lovers. The most popular band in one of your earth time-periods stands to
win a recording contract worth $250,000. The Advisory Board members can also
sift through the music and contact any of the bands themselves. Thanks to
Richard Joly for this story, sourced from
here.

"I Dormienti" -- Richard also turned up
this review of Mimmo Paladino's two installations last year,
the second of which included Brian's music.

Synth Something Simple -- A Mini Moog synthesizer used by
Brian is currently at auction on eBay
here. According to the description, it was featured on
numerous 01980's recordings including Apollo, Music for Films II,
The Pearl, On Land, Fourth World, Textures,
Plateaux of Mirror, The Catherine Wheel & Thursday
Afternoon. Bidding started at $1,000. And as EnoWeb visitor David Davis
pointed out, the EMS Synthi-AKS auctioned at Vemia last year fetched
£16,000.

HU2L -- The Zoonation U2 site has Variety's review of
Million Dollar Hotelhere.

On Some Faraway Beach -- The soundtrack of the new film
The Beach includes a cover of the Eno/Cale song "Spinning Away".
Thanks to Robert Phan for this information. EnoWeb notices that
Beach star Leonardo DiCaprio's name can be forced into the film-inspired
anagram "Eno a cop droid? Liar!" but is uncertain what this may mean, if
anything.

See what 2.con do -- In a recent web chat, David Bowie
included "trying to piece together 2.contamination, the follow up to
1.Outside" in the list of projects he is hoping to tackle this year. He
also hinted he could be playing at Glastonbury -- so it looks as though he's
going to be back on Tor sometime during 02000... To read the transcript, click
here. Thanks to Richard Joly for this
information.

Ferry Nuff -- Bryan Ferry has a new web-site, at
bryanferry.com. He did a
web-chat too.

Play along -- Brian is a trustee and think-tank member for
Jem Finer's new Longplayer project. Longplayer is a musical composition which
is intended to play continuously and without repetition from 1st January this
year until 31st December 02999. Yup, 1000 years. For more information visit
longplayer.org.
Longplayer was commissioned and produced by
Artangel, with whom
Brian collaborated on the Self Storage installation a few years
back.

Go fly a Kite -- Brian Eno's new "Kite Stories" CD is now
available direct from Opal, on the same basis as "I Dormienti". For
ordering details including a new mailing address, please visit
EnoWeb's dedicated page located at our annexe.

Missing you already -- CD Two of James' new single, we're
going to miss you, includes "we're going to miss you (eno's version)",
mixed by Brian. It's on the mercury label, jimdd 24, 562 568-2. Thanks to
Bommel for this information.

Heartbreak Hotel -- Brian's been working with U2, Jon
Hassell, Daniel Lanois, Wim Wenders and others on the soundtrack for the film
Million Dollar Hotel, which had its première on February 9th at
the Berlin Film Festival. For more details, visit
Sonicnet. Thanks to Richard Joly for this
information.

Chime, gentlemen, please! -- To amuse his friends, Brian's
been "inventing some new types of bells and chimes" for the Clock of the Long
Now. For an update on this project, see this news story from
The
Dallas Morning News. Thanks to Richard Joly for this
information.

Other news sources

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